Civil liberties and civil rights
Article VI, Section 4. Qualification for registration. Every person presenting himself for registration shall be able to read and write any section of the Constitution in the English language.
At the time, carve-out for anyone eligible to vote or descended from someone eligible to vote before January 1, 1867 (“grandfather clause”).
Fayetteville Observer, 1899
When do you think North Carolina’s literacy test became unenforceable?
When did the US become a “democracy”?
White-only Democratic primary elections in South ruled unconstitutional in 1944.
Understanding clauses outlawed in 1965
Keele, Luke, William Cubbison, and Ismail White. 2021. “Suppressing Black Votes: A Historical Case Study of Voting Restrictions in Louisiana.” American Political Science Review 115(2): 694–700.
The right to vote is, generously, unenumerated.
The Constitution specifies who you can’t keep from voting, but it doesn’t say everyone can vote.
Why is this distinction important?
Why does Sweat v. Painter matter?
Set an important precedent that the “equal” in “separate but equal” needed to be taken seriously.
One cause of racial realignment?
New Deal, Great Migration to the North, 1948 convention/election + Dixiecrat revolt, civil rights coalition, Civil Rights Acts/Voting Rights Act (you’ll read about this in more depth during interest groups week)
What’s “preclearance”?
States regulated under Voting Rights Act of 1965 needed approval from DOJ to change election administration procedures.
Women’s suffrage delivered “under partisan duress”?
Women organized for the right to vote in many states first, giving the movement added leverage to build political coalitions in support of the constitutional amendment.
What do Corder and Wolbrecht mean in arguing that suffrage is a necessary but insufficient condition for government founded on the consent of the governed?
Voting rights are what you make them. Deeper forms of political participation inform how other actors in the political system – such as political parties and politicians – adapt to appeal to women as political constituencies.
Congress
Interesting time to be doing intro to Congress…
Foran, Clare, Manu Raju, Annie Grayer, and Melanie Zanona. “McCarthy elected House speaker after days of painstaking negotiations and failed votes.” CNN, January 7, 2023. https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/06/politics/mccarthy-speaker-fight-friday/index.html
Having a partisan majority is not the same thing as having a procedural majority.
Shout out some structural features of U.S. Congress:
Institutional features structure members’ behavior as representatives.
Congress as the “first branch”
“The aim of every political constitution is, or ought to be, first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of the society; and in the next place, to take the most effectual precautions for keeping them virtuous whilst they continue to hold their public trust. The elective mode of obtaining rulers is the characteristic policy of republican government.”
Sounds like Locke, no?
Shout out some powers of U.S. Congress:
Shout out some checks Congress has on the other branches:
Mayhew: in expectation, members are “single-minded seekers of reelection”
What does that mean?
Pros and cons?
Members boost their re-election chances through:
What can members claim credit for?
What counts as position taking?
Key features are a) publicity; and b) policy stance
What counts as advertising? In capacity as representative, this is different from 30-second TV spots.
Key features are a) publicity and b) non-policy content
Members of Congress will tailor their “home style” based on their incentives.
More competitive election, less emphasis on contentious national issues.
Grimmer, Justin. 2013. “Appropriators not Position Takers: The Distorting Effects of Electoral Incentives on Congressional Representation.” American Journal of Political Science 57(3): 624-642.
To whom are members of Congress accountable?
Fenno (1978): concentric circles of representation
People tend to dislike Congress but like their own member (is this really a paradox?).
Opinions toward both tend to move together.
Enten, Harry. “Disliking Congress, as a Whole And as Individuals.” FiveThirtyEight, July 1 2014. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/disliking-congress-as-a-whole-and-as-individuals/
Incumbents play re-election on easy mode. What are some of their advantages?
When incumbents run for re-election, they tend to win.
Members may retire when re-election looks unlikely.
But the advantage attributable to incumbency is shrinking. Why?
Rogers, Steven. 2023. “The Vanishing Incumbency Advantage in State House Elections.” The Forum 21(1)
Different theories of how representation should work:
Pros and cons? When do we want which?
Different types of representation:
Current (118th) Congress: more diverse than ever, but that’s a low bar to clear
Current (118th) Congress: more diverse than ever, but that’s a low bar to clear
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Congressional representation takes place on multiple levels:
What are some of Duke’s interests?
https://governmentrelations.duke.edu/
The House is small.
The House is supposed to be bigger (Federalist 58)
Data from electproject.org
Consequences of a small House?
Or, gerrymandering.
The authority to draw district lines is formally left to the states.
This typically means states legislatures draw the lines, typically after the decennial Census
Rules (everyone):
Rules (some/most states)
Norms:
Princeton Gerrymandering Project
Partisan:
Smith, Jamil. “Ohio gerrymandering costs Congress a liberal.” NBC News, March 7, 2012.
Racial:
Scales, Liliana. “Why Chicago’s 4th Congressional District — those ‘earmuffs’ — are about fairness and not gerrymandering.” Chicago Sun-Times, March 11, 2020.
There are a ton of metrics out there. Here are a few:
Ansolabehere, Stephen, and William Leblanc. 2008. “A spatial model of the relationship between seats and votes.” Mathematical and Computer Modelling 48(9-10): 1409-1420.
“Unintentional” gerrymandering as a function of geography…What do I mean by this? If one party’s voters are more spread out than the other’s, neutral lines will produce unequal outcomes.
Aggressive redistricting can backfire…Thoughts on why? Maps decay; uniform swing can create a wave.
Competitive districts “waste” votes…Thoughts on why? “Leapfrog” representation.
Decline in incumbency advantage – why?
Nationalization, polarization, party-centered electoral process
How does Congress lower its transaction costs?
Fixed/recurring rules (such as seniority for committee assignments), precedent (norms)
“Multiple referrals”?
When different committees have overlapping jurisdictions that cover the same bill, so they both consider it
“Unorthodox lawmaking”?
Designing special, one-off rules and procedures to navigate around veto points for specific pieces of legislation
Why does Congress have less party discipline than UK Parliament?
Why worry about winning “comfortably”?
Winning narrowly is a sign of weakness that could trigger additional resources being deployed against them in the next election
Why Skelly/Shah think we’ve seen more descriptive representation other than majority-minority districts?
Partisanship. Getting nominated raises the floor.
Who is currently Speaker of the House?
Our standard political knowledge question just became a trick question.
Should House Democrats have abstained to save McCarthy?
From Democrats’ perspective…
Yes:
No:
Lots of veto points!
Committees (which ones have jurisdiction, who sits on them) extremely important.
Proposal –> presiding officer (Speaker or President Pro-Tempore) –> Committee*^ –> Subcommittee*^ –> Committee –> Rules Committee*^ (if House) –> Chamber floor*^ –> other chamber floor*^ –> Conference Committee*^ –> Final Passage^ –> President^
if veto…
New floor votes^ (need 2/3 majority to pass)
*: Bill can be amended
^: Bill can die
Members can navigate gridlock via “unorthodox” procedures you didn’t learn about in eighth grade civics.
Multiple pathways for a given piece of legislation to become law. Rules and procedure matter!
Centralization of agenda-setting power, special rules, adaptation of policy to fit procedure.
House:
Senate:
Why is the Rules Committee so powerful?
(When and under what procedures) will the bill be considered by the full chamber?
Wolfensberger, Don. “Long-Serving Dingell Is a Master of House Traditions.” Roll Call, June 11 2013. https://rollcall.com/2013/06/11/long-serving-dingell-is-a-master-of-house-traditions-wolfensberger/
Congressional Budget Act of 1974:
Example: Byrd Rule
Once again, you can’t write everything down.
Impeachment, filibuster, “advice and consent”
Evolving norms around “blue slips”
Senate “folkways” and norms of collegiality
The chambers organize themselves:
Each committee further divided into subcommittees, etc.
Seats on committees allocated by the majority party in consultation with the minority.1
Parties then select members to fill allotted seats based on their own rules/procedures.
Lists approved by full chamber.
Why does Congress organize itself into committees?
What do we mean when we say congressional “ideology”? Pros and cons of this measurement approach?
Source: voteview.com
Polarization is relative. “Textbook” Congress in 60s-70s had abnormally low polarization. Why?
Source: voteview.com
Less evidence:
Mixed evidence:
More evidence:
“I have built my staff around comms rather than legislation.”
1st term, minority party, anticipation of competitive midterm…rational?
How does single-minded seeking of re-election translate to congressional voting behavior?
Members of Congress do what they want.
Players x rules x status quo = nature of policy change
Krehbiel, Keith. 1998. Pivotal Politics: A Theory of U.S. Lawmaking. University of Chicago Press.
Some implications…
One way to break gridlock: trade wins
Common example: Farm Bill
Omnibus legislation: bundling lots of bills (major and minor) together at once
Another way to break gridlock: cut everyone in via “pork”
Competition and polarization
Capacity and Congress as a firm in the market for labor